Not a good day today

It was just one of those days today. Some days are really good, and you finish the day feeling that you have made a real difference. Other days, like today, you feel quite down and you wonder if there is really any point in battling all these problems us 'wonderful' humans cause to wildlife.

A beautiful hobby was brought in today, very small and pretty birds of prey that we rarely see. Sadly, she had a badly broken wing which was being eaten away by maggots and had to be put to sleep. Another patient, an adult female hedgehog was found on the road and, as an example of just how resilient wild animals are, we watched her wandering round and round in the cage, eating a bit and then going back to her walking again. There appeared to be only a slight swelling to her forehead, nothing else was obvious but I was suspicious of the swelling and decided to have her x-rayed. This revealed a large piece of her skull totally broken away (I won't go into any more detail about the injury) and I simply cannot believe that any animal could still be walking and eating with such a serious, horrendous injury. Obviously she also had to be put to sleep, another victim of our modern day world - hedgehog versus car, there is usually only one winner in this situation!

On a more cheerful note, we have released quite a number of mammals and birds lately including a grass snake that had been tangled in pond netting, two buzzards plus we have some more fox cubs going out to a release pen this weekend, so it's not all bad news!